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A Second Chance for Connecticut Youths

Quite often we describe our children as the future of our society. While
we try our best to raise our children to be good, caring, happy people
that contribute to society, sometimes it doesn’t turn out like we
hoped. There are points in time where our youths can stray from the path
that we all hope for them. Often this can end in anger, grief and heartache.
This gets especially murky when our court system has to decide whether
our teenagers are considered children or adults in the eyes of the law.
There has been a recent initiative in our Connecticut court systems to
preach leniency and forgiveness for crimes that are less serious. Our
system has been pushing for a second chance for Connecticut’s youths.

While the overall number of incarcerated youths has stayed steady over
the the last few years, there is an initiative in place to reduce the
overall number of incarcerations in minors by 20% over the next three
years. There has even been a law change so 16 and 17-year olds who are
accused of less serious crimes are handled by the juvenile court systems.
Governor Malloy has gotten involved as well, leading an initiative known as the
Second Chance Initiative, which deals with reform to our justice system.

This proposal is not without obstacles. Hartford and Bridgeport detention
centers alone detain roughly 1,400 youths annually. Many of these will
be repeat visitors over their lifetimes. In order to get a snapshot of
who these at-risk youths are, here is a snapshot:

While we move away from the idea that mass incarceration is the answer
in our state, our government continues to search for an appropriate solution
to not only try to give these children a second chance at society, but
to also help everyone write a different ending to their story than one
that ends behind bars. For more information on the current initiative,
you can read about the proposed changes
here.